Classwork Wed. 9/8/1 Skills: paraphrase, quotation, reading with the grain, "they say" (vs. "I say")From Simi Linton's "Reassigning Meaning"
Dominant culture's meaning of disability
Linton's meaning
Linton explains that "the term disability, as it has been used in general parlance, appears to signify something material and concrete, a physical or psychological condition considered to have predominantly medical significance" (224).
Linton discusses how "the medicalization of disability casts human variation as deviance from the norm, as pathological condition, as deficit, and, significantly, as an individual burden and personal tragedy" (224).
According to Linton, the medical model believes that the problem is physical and is in the person rather social or political and in society or the environment (224).
According to the medical model, there is a particular "perfect" or "normal" body or mind that we all should try to attain.
The medical model assumes that disability is a personal burden which the person must take on themselves; in other words, the medical model says that society does not necessarily have to change the way it thinks or acts.
The medical model believes in "overcoming" a disability (228).
Anything considered "abnormal" is stigmatized or seen as a deficit (230-31).
The medical model relies heavily upon the idea of disability. Various industries are built up and supported because of the idea of disability; yet the medical model presumes it would be better if disability did not exist (224).
According to Linton, the disability studies perspective (her perspective) does not have any use for the medical definition of disability (223).
In other words, Linton resists the medical model.
Linton believes it is not helpful to pity someone with a disability (233).
Disability is a cultural identity similar to race, class, or gender (223).
Linton emphasizes the sociopolitical meanings of disability over the physical and medical ones (224).
For Linton, words and phrases like "afflicted," "wheelchair bound," and "suffering from" are not in the interest of disability studies (232-233).
Linton thinks it is important that people can name themselves and that they have control over how they are defined.
The disability studies perspective believes that there is no neutral, universal position of "normal" (230-232).
Disability is a natural human variation (224).
Linton explains why the concept of "overcoming" is problematic for people with disabilities (228-29); the phrase signifies that the one can not succees with a disability but rather must "overcome" it to succeed.
The normal and abnormal are not absolute categories but rather are random designations (230-31).
9/29/10
Peer Review of Visual Rhetorical Analysis Draft
9/29/10
Peer Review of Visual Rhetorical Analysis Draft
10/11/10
Invention work for argument essay
11/1/10